Southern California Section, The Mathematical Association of America

Newsletter

Spring Meeting 1999

The Spring Meeting of the Southern California Section of the MAA will be a joint meeting with the Southern California Section of SIAM and will take place on the campus of University of California, San Diego, March 13, 1999.

This is an exciting meeting. We are very fortunate to have several wonderful expositors as our invited speakers. Joseph Gallian of the University of Minnesota - Duluth is an award winning teacher and writer. He will tell us about his personal efforts to break drivers' license codes. Peter Doyle of the University of California, San Diego will give the luncheon address on Montmort's Probleme du Treize which promises to be educational and entertaining. Fan Chung Graham also of the University of California, San Diego will show us the connections between pebbling graphs and communications problems.

Other program features include a Student Contributed Poster Session, a Panel Session on Summer Mathematics Opportunities for Undergraduates, a Mathematical Game Show and an MAA Book Sale. In addition, the Luncheon Program will include the presentation of the Southern California MAA Section's 1999 Distinguished Teaching Award and a short Section Business Meeting. The SoCal Project NExT will gather for an informal dinner following the meeting. There is something in this program for everyone. So bring along an undergraduate or graduate student to the meeting. Encourage one or more students to present a poster. It's a great opportunity to promote undergraduate research projects and to learn how to get involved!

Registration and Luncheon

The registration desk will be in the International Center, and will be open from 8:15 to 12:00. Lunch will be at the Faculty Club from 12:00 - 2:00. Details concerning travel, preregistration and luncheon reservations can be found on pages 6 - 7. Those members who register and/or make luncheon reservations in advance will be able to pick up a packet containing their program, badge, and appropriate tickets at the registration desk. So register today!

Highlights of this Newsletter

The Students' Column

Special Student Rates for Spring Meeting
Students may register for the Spring Meeting for the special rate of $5.00 for registration and $13.00 for registration and lunch. In addition, each undergraduate student registrant will receive a FREE mathematics careers booklet, featuring more than a dozen mathematical careers.

Summer Research Information Session
Find out how you can spend the summer of 1999 doing mathematics and getting paid for it at the Summer Mathematics Opportunities for Undergraduates Information Session at the Spring Meeting at UC San Diego.

Award Winners at National Meetings!
An Undergraduate Poster Session, sponsored by the CUPM Committee on Undergraduate Research, the Committee on Student Chapters and by CUR (Council on Undergraduate Research) took place on Friday January 15 in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the MAA and AMS in San Antonio, Texas. The session, organized by Aparna Higgins of the University of Dayton and by our Secretary-Treasurer Mario Martelli, had 43 posters, the largest number ever since this activity was started five years ago.

Our Section was represented by six posters. Erik Anderson from Cal Poly Pomona presented "Integral Solutions to the Antidifference Operator on an Infinite Ordered Set". Scott Carnahan of Caltech was the presenter of "Counting Hopf Galois Structures on Non-Abelian Galois Field Extensions". Ryan Derby-Talbot of Pomona College presented "Lengths of Geodesics on Klein's Quartic Curve". Bryan Rodas of Loyola Marymount University was a co-presenter of "Groebner Basis Conversion Methods for the Implicitization of Bisector Surfaces". Suzanne Sindi and Gareguin Michaelian from Cal State Fullerton presented "Bifurcation: A Geometric Approach" and Omar Zuniga, from UC Riverside presented a poster on "Using Farey Fractions to Analyze the Complexity of Calculating the Greatest Common Divisor".

Of the eight $100 ex-equo prizes offered by the MAA and CUR, three went to participants from our section. Recognized were Erik Anderson, Ryan Derby-Talbot, and Brian Rodas.

Spring Meeting
Student Poster Session

Share your mathematical work with others by presenting a poster at the Spring Meeting at UC San Diego! Posters may feature the results of any individual or group mathematics project, including:

• Results of honors, senior, or other independent study projects;
• Results of classroom projects or modeling contests;
• Results of REUs or other summer workshops or research programs;
• Historical investigations in pure or applied mathematics;
• Solutions of problems from the Putnam Exam or from the Monthly or other journals;
• MAA Student Chapter or Math Club activities or projects.

If you don't already have a poster topic in mind, ask one of your professors for a project to present. Besides the challenge of working on the project, benefits to you include:

• Opportunity to share your work with other students and with mathematicians from both academia and industry in a friendly environment;
• Free meeting registration and free lunch;
• Free 1-year MAA membership, including 1-year subscription to an MAA journal (or free MAA book if you already are an MAA member);
• Chance to win great door prizes during lunch time drawing;
• Great resume entry.

Submit title and brief abstract to the address or e-mail address below by Wednesday, March 3, 1999. Be sure to include your name, the name of your school, and your advisor's name. Questions should also be directed to the addresses below.

Prof. Janet L. Beery
Dept. of Mathematics
Univ. of Redlands
1200 E. Colton Ave.
Redlands, CA 92373
Phone: (909)793-2121, ext. 3118
Email: beery@uor.edu or beery@jasper.uor.edu

From the Secretary's desk --

The term of your Secretary-Treasurer expires after the March 13 meeting at UC San Diego, and I would like to take this opportunity to bring you up to date on the state of our section.

From a financial point of view our situation is comfortable. A lot of people should be credited. First, the merit goes to the previous Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Beechler, who established our financial basis with careful planning of income and expenses of our Spring and Fall meetings. Second, the merit goes to all of you for your continued support. Every year the MAA gives us back part of your membership fee. By continuing your support of the organization you contribute to the well-being of our section. A special thank should also be extended to our book sale representatives Dick Katz and Michael Hoffman. We receive 10% of the cost of every book they sell at our meetings. This source of income brings about $ 350 every year.

Another thank you goes to our Program Chairs of the last three years: Asuman Aksoy, Shahriar Shahriari and Jennifer Quinn. They have provided us with excellent speakers, while at the same time minimizing the cost of transportation and accommodation. We should not forget the newsletter editors Claudia and Jim Pinter-Lucke, who have always tried to save a dollar here and there in preparing, printing and mailing the three yearly issues of our newsletter. And last, but not least, our thanks go to the meeting coordinators Barbara Beechler and Ernie Solheid, who have always worked hard to provide us the best possible service while maintaining at the same time very reasonable registration fees. With all these people in mind I inform you that our balance was $10,995 in June 1996 when I took over from Barbara Beechler, and it stands today at $12,505.

At the meeting in San Antonio, the Committee on Sections approved our new bylaws which have been revised by the board with help from the past chair Al Shenk. A change introduced in the bylaws is that from now on the section will have only one Vice-Chair instead of two, but will have two Vice-Program Chairs. The board decided that the long range planning of meetings, both regarding location and speakers, would be better serviced if the Program Chair is flanked by a first Vice-Program Chair and a Second Vice-Program Chair, who will later become Program Chairs. Besides the bylaws, your Secretary-Treasurer has prepared a list of practices which should be very helpful to the person who will replace me.

The Distinguished Teaching Award activities have flourished during the last three years. While most sections are still struggling with too few nominations, we have been blessed with strong lists of nominees for the award. In 1996 we had three nominees, in 1997 we had five, and in 1998 we had eight. The merit for this situation goes mostly to Kwang-nan Chow, who chaired the Distinguished Teaching Award Committee in 1996-97 and 1997-98 and worked very hard at increasing the sensibility of the section to this important award.

Our future meetings are planned until the Spring of the year 2001. Next fall we meet at Chapman University, in the Spring of Y2K we meet at UCLA, the fall 2000 meeting will be at Wittier College and the Spring 2001 meeting at the Beckman Center in Irvine. The Spring 2000 meeting commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Southern California Section. UCLA is the natural choice for this meeting. The section was started by a very distinguished group of faculty who met for the first time at the institution which later became UCLA.

I would like to say with Saint Paul: bonum certamen certavi, cursum consummavi, fidem servavi. Let me translate the Latin for the ones of you who are not latin lovers: I fought the good fight, I finished my job, I never lost my faith. Next year the section will be in the very capable hands of its chair Kenneth Cooke, assisted by a distinguished board. Barbara Beechler, who has devoted countless hours to the Section, is our Governor. We could not start the next millennium with a better team and a more upbeat spirit.

Mario Martelli,
Secretary-Treasurer
Mathematics Department, CSU Fullerton

Future Meetings of Interest to Mathematicians

SPRING MEETING March 13, 1999

Invited Speakers

Fan Chung Graham, University of California, San Diego
Pebbling on graphs
Moving pebbles on graphs often provides important techniques for transforming algorithmic and communication problems into combinatorial games. In this talk, we will discuss a variety of graph pebbling problems, describe some classic results and mention several new unsolved problems.

Peter Dolye, University of California, San Diego
Solution of Montmort's Probleme du Treize
We determine the exact value to the dealer of the game of Treize. This solves a problem posed about 300 years ago by Pierre Remond de Montmort.

Joseph Gallian, University of Minnesota - Duluth
Breaking Drivers' License Codes
Many states use complicated algorithms or formulas to assign drivers' license numbers but keep the method confidential. Just for the fun of it, Professor Gallian attempted to figure out how the states code their license numbers. In this talk he will discuss how he was able to break the codes for several of the states. The talk illustrates an important problem-solving technique that is not emphasized in mathematics classes. It also teaches the lesson that sometimes things done just for the sake of curiosity can have applications.

Panel Session

Summer Opportunities for Undergraduates
Joseph Gallian, University of Minnesota - Duluth, Director of the Duluth REU
Magnhild Lien, Cal. State Univ. Northridge, Director of the Summer Mathematics Program
plus student participants from other programs.

The panelists will represent a wide range of summer math experiences. They will discuss mathematical opportunities for undergraduate students from their own personal viewpoints as directors and participants. Faculty and students alike will gain insight into how to participate in summer programs and choosing a program that is best for you.

Game Show

THE NUMBER YEARS will challenge your knowledge of mathematics and mathematical trivia. Everyone gets to play. Bring a writing implement and your wits. You just might go home a grand prize winner!

Directions to University of California, San Diego

Exit I-5 west at La Jolla Village Drive.

• From the North, this is the next exit after the Genessee exit.
• From the South, this is the next exit after the Gilman exit.

Take the first right north onto Villa La Jolla Drive. Continue on Villa La Jolla Drive to the second stop sign at a dead-end with Gilman Drive. Turn left in the parking lot on the corner of continue on the parking lot by the School of Medicine.

Parking

Park in the lot on the corner of Gilman and Villa La Jolla Drive, or in the parking lot by the School of Medicine. There are no parking fees. Visitors can park in any space (including metered spaces), except for a few well-marked spaces that are reserved at all times.

Registration

Follow the signs from the parking lot to Center Hall (labeled on the map below) and from there to the International Center, located across Library Walk from Center Hall. The Registration Desk is in the International Center. It will be open from 8:15 - 12:00.

BALLOT

I wish to vote for the slate of nominees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .______________

Section Chair: Kenneth L. Cooke, Pomona College . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .______________

Or Write-in: __________________________

First Vice-Chair: Bob Stein, CSU San Bernardino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .______________

Or Write-in: __________________________

Second Vice-Chair: Wilhemus Luxemburg, Caltech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .______________

Or Write-in: __________________________

Program Chair: Bruce Rothschild, UCLA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .______________

Or Write-in: __________________________

Prog. Vice-Chair: Magnhild Lien, CSU Northridge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .______________

Or Write-in: __________________________

Please return your ballot by Saturday, March 6, 1999 to: Mario Martelli, Department of Mathematics, Cal State Fullerton, Fullerton CA, 92634-9480

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Pre-Registration/Luncheon Reservation Form
Spring Meeting at University of California, San Diego
March 13, 1999

Enter the number of registrations of each type in the appropriate blank in the table below. Complete the form and send it with payment (make checks payable to Southern California MAA) no later than Friday, March 5 to: Ernie Solheid, Dept. of Mathematics, CSU Fullerton, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton, CA 92834

(Attach a separate page for multiple registration information.)

Name____________________________________________________

Affiliation_________________________________________________

Address __________________________________________________

E-mail Address____________________________________________

Questions or problems? Contact:
Ernie Solheid, Email: esolheid@fullerton.edu , phone: (714) 278-7023.

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